School of Music welcomes two new faculty

The School of Music welcomes two new faculty members to start the 2014-2015 school year. Daniel Shirley joins the School as teaching instructor in the Voice Department and assistant professor Dr. Raychl Smith is the newest member of the School’s Music Education faculty.

Of his 2013 Carnegie Hall debut, the New York Concert Review noted, “Daniel Shirley’s voice soared over the large forces with strength and clarity.” The tenor continues to earn critical praise for his appearances in concert, opera, and musical theater. During the 2014-15 season he looks forward to debuting Candide and Anthony Hope (Sweeney Todd) with Madison Opera, and to more concert appearances including Carmina burana with the Alabama Symphony. Recent seasons have brought debuts with Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Memphis, New York City Opera, Boston Baroque, Sugar Creek Symphony & Song, Madison Opera, and Intermountain Opera Bozeman. In concert, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall with Distinguished Concerts International New York, and with the Pacific Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Music of the Baroque, Indianapolis Symphony and Evansville Philharmonic.

Shirley trained in some of America’s most notable apprentice programs: Santa Fe Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Central City Opera and Chautauqua Opera. He is working towards the completion of the Doctor of Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he earned a Master of Music. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music. His teachers have included Patricia Stiles, Jason Ferrante, Jonathan Retzlaff, and Gayle Shay.

Shirley is a native of Jackson, Mississippi, and performs often with his wife, soprano Caitlin Shirley.

Raychl Smith comes to the School’s Music Education faculty from Minnesota State University Moorhead. Smith holds the Ph.D. and M.M. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a B.M. from Appalachian State University. She was previously the program coordinator and assistant professor of music education at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

While completing graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Smith served as an instructor of music education at Elon University.

Prior to teaching at the collegiate level, Smith taught in the public schools of North Carolina as an elementary general music teacher, choral director and middle school band director. She was selected as teacher of the year at Weddington Hills Elementary School while teaching in Cabarrus County Smith’s research interests include Creative Motion pedagogy, innovative approaches to facilitating free improvisation, community music making, and music education and social justice.Her most recent article, published in the Journal of Creative Motion, explores the differences between external movement and internal motion within Creative Motion pedagogy.

Smith serves as the Second Vice President of the Creative Motion Alliance, a national organization that certifies teachers in Creative Motion pedagogy. She teaches on the summer faculty of the Windswept Music Conference, which has previously been held on the campuses of William Jewel College and Ouachita Baptist University.